I don’t understand why everybody wouldn’t want Christianity to be true, even if they’re not Christians. I know that some people don’t like Christians because they’ve been treated poorly by them. There’s some who don’t believe in Christianity, because they were taught something different. But I don’t understand why everyone wouldn’t want Christianity to be true. Jesus was so amazing! He was tough, he was no wimp, he spoke the truth. He surprised people because he loved people no one else loved. Why wouldn’t everyone want Christianity to be true? All sorts of people were attracted to Jesus–people who were nothing like him. Why did they flock to him? Grace. He showed undeserved, unearned, unearnable favor to everyone.
Grace is what you crave when you hurt someone you love or hurt someone you need. You want them to forgive you, to trust you, to accept you, as if that hurt never even happened. You want them to show grace, so your relationship is restored.
Grace is what we want from God and others. Jesus offered such grace that it shocked people. They thought, “He is taking this too far!” It was unsettling. We want grace for ourselves. We are all for that! But when we’re supposed to give it to someone else? That’s not fair.
You can find grace in many places in the Bible, such as the story of Jonah. We think of Jonah as a children’s story: there’s a big whale that swallows Jonah. But the Bible says it isn’t a whale–it’s a fish. I wonder what kind of fish, and maybe it’s a great white shark that lost all its teeth! When it swallowed Jonah, it gummed him all the way down. Jonah ended up in the fish, because he believed in grace for himself, but not for his enemy. God had told him to go to Nineveh and tell the people God was angry at them for their sins and they would be destroyed. Nineveh was a big city. For a while, it was the biggest city in the world! Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, which was an enemy of Israel. The last place Jonah wants to help is the city of Nineveh. There is an ancient picture carved in stone of Assyrians stretching out Hebrews to whip them until their skin peels off! Jonah runs the other way when God says to tell Nineveh of their sins. Not because he’s scared, but because he’s mad at God. Jonah doesn’t want to help his enemy.
It would be hard for any of us, if we were Hebrews, to find it in our hearts to help Nineveh. But his fish episode convinces him to go. And something happens that never happens: the people listened to Jonah. In the Old Testament the prophets are always telling the people and the king that God is angry, and they have to turn from their ways. Moses told God, “These people are stiff-necked: stubborn and rebellious!” But the King of Nineveh listened to Jonah. All the Ninevites put on sackcloth and ashes and changed their ways. God did not destroy them. But Jonah was mad!
I can understand where Jonah is coming from. But at the same time, it is good news that when we change, when we turn to God, grace is there. Our sin is not the end of the story. Forgiveness and a new life is possible!
Jonah goes, sits down and pouts. He is mad! He says to God, this is why I ran away from you: you are gracious and compassionate. God causes a vine to grow over Jonah and give him shade. Jonah is very happy! Then God causes a worm to infect the vine and it shrivels. Now he is miserable.
“Do you have a right to be angry about this vine?” God asks in Jonah 4:9. I gave you this nice vine, you didn’t plant it or help it grow. You care more about this vine than about 120,000 people in the city who don’t know right from wrong, and many cattle. “Don’t you think I should be concerned about that big city?” (Jonah 4:11) We don’t know if Jonah ever got over his anger at God. Jonah’s story shows us the unsettling grace and compassion of God.
In Jesus’ ministry there are lots of stories of grace. He told a parable once. A parable is a made-up story to illustrate a point. In every parable Jesus tells, there is somebody who represents God, and somebody who represents you. Jesus starts off saying, let me explain in this story what the kingdom of heaven is like: this new way of living I’m inviting you into.
In Matthew 20:1 Jesus says, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.” The landowner goes to the public square and hires the workers he needs for the day. The landowners mostly just thinking about getting the labor done, they are not so much concerned about the workers.
In v.2 it says: “He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.” Everybody knows the pay. And he chooses people to go work for him. Then about 3 hours later, v. 3 says: “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’” We’ll figure it out at the end. “5 So they went.”
Maybe you’ve heard this parable before. Maybe you haven’t. But if you have, you know what is going to happen, and it is so unsettling, because it seems so unfair. This is so Jesus. It isn’t how you get people to follow you, because it is so the opposite of what we expect, the opposite of our experience in life. But it is the way you introduce the upside-down kingdom of God. V. 5 says: “The landowner went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.” He hired some more workers. Jesus was such a great storyteller; he took things to an extreme. And everybody would try to figure out where this story was going!
Here’s the point where Jesus takes it to the extreme: 6 “About five in the afternoon the landowner went out and found still others standing around.” At five in the afternoon, there is only one hour left to work. “He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’” Everybody knows why. They say: “Because no one has hired us.” Jesus continues the story, “The landowner says, you also go work in my vineyard.” Go work! Even though it’s almost quitting time.
Jesus’ listeners are thinking, this is going to be a disaster. How do you figure the wages when everybody worked different hours? Verse 8 says “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
He starts with the people who worked in the vineyard one hour. And here’s the twist, and here is the value system Jesus is trying to introduce to the world. It is so unsettling to some people. But it is so hopeful to others. The way this parable ends is unsettling to people like me. Maybe Jesus was speaking to people like me: those who get there ready for work on time, work hard, stay later than they need to. People who grew up trying to do it right. People who weren’t always perfect, went to church and prayed and tried to behave. Jesus is speaking to the got there first, did their part, mostly well-behaved people.
Jesus’ parable continues: 9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.” I can imagine every worker is really happy now: they figure if the one-hour people got a denarius, we’re going to get a lot more! The landowner had promised the workers who began working first thing that morning, they would get a denarius. They think oh boy, we’re not going to get paid a denarius a day, we’re getting paid a denarius an hour! Verse 10 says, “So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.” Only a denarius, the same as those who worked only an hour! They grumble that’s not fair! 12” ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’” The landowner says, “Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go.”
The landowner gave the one who was hired last, the same as he gave those hired first. The workers are like: you didn’t give us anything, we earned our pay. We worked hard! You didn’t give us anything, well, after you gave us the job. 5 “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” Then Jesus, as he tells this parable, puts a spotlight on my hypocrisy when it comes to the subject of grace. “Or are you envious because I am generous?” The workers are thinking, “No, I’m not envious because you’re generous, I just think because I work harder, I earn it!”
Through this parable Jesus invites us to see the world differently, see the people around us differently, and see our relationship to God differently. Because the kingdom of God is characterized by unsettling generosity. Jesus is asking me and asking you: can you handle that? Will you step into a system in which the undeserving get exactly what they don’t deserve? Am I willing to extend to others what they don’t deserve exactly because my heavenly father extended to me what I don’t’ deserve?
Of course, all the prodigal sons and daughters are saying, “Hallelujah! Praise God!” All the people who feel like they screwed up so badly that God isn’t talking to them anymore, they say, “Praise Jesus!” Jesus says to the people who show up to work on time: are you ready to put the last first and the first be last? It’s a warning that living according to God’s values will feel unfair. Everybody is invited to the kingdom of God. Jesus lets us all in!
So, here’s my homework for you this week: give to someone what they don’t expect and what they don’t necessarily deserve: grace, compassion and forgiveness.
In God’s kingdom, we all come in the same way, through placing our faith in Jesus. He made us right with God no matter how much we sinned, and no matter how unsettling that might sound. When you show the grace of God, you will be like your Father in heaven, part of the solution that heals us all. Grace brings us all together in God’s kingdom. Amen.
September 22
Maureen Duffy-Guy's blog 